


Something Soft and Low

by Skogkatt



Category: Drive On Driver (Song)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skogkatt/pseuds/Skogkatt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We can't choose who we love, but we can choose how we express it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Soft and Low

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soupytwist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupytwist/gifts).



Eleanor Divine sat in the back of the silver sedan as still as if she were made of stone. Maybe if she waited quietly, her love would come. If she didn't, well, Eleanor would get on with things. Keep Calm and Carry On. That's what all the posters and T-shirts and things said these days, wasn't it? Something from World War II. It might be selfish and small to compare her personal heartbreak to the London Blitz, but Eleanor couldn't help feeling the comparison was apt.

Randy kept the engine running. Las Vegas in August was ghastly, and if they were going to sit here outside the South Point Casino, they needed the air conditioner to stay on. Eleanor studied the familiar lines of his weathered face in the rearview mirror, and sighed. They'd been together for over 20 years. It didn't seem possible. But here she was, 45 and a megastar with what to show for it? Aside from the mansion and the cars and the plane and all that? A great big pile of loneliness.

When she'd first met Sophie, back when they were in their twenties, it seemed like the world was a wide open playground, like anything was possible. Eleanor hadn't thought the decision to split up the act was so bad. None of them got along with Dana, and girl groups were not selling. Hot sexy solo acts were the ones that stood a chance. Maybe with a platoon of backup dancers, but the days of the Bangles and the Go Gos were long over by then. A few years down the road the tiny children like Britney would come along and start showing them all up, but in the thick of the mid-nineties, a chick in her twenties actually stood a chance. Eleanor had thought Sophie understood that. They were better off apart. She wanted them both to kick ass and take names.

Sophie hadn't understood. That became clear enough. If the songs more bitter than Alanis's Jagged Little Pill hadn't been clue enough, the letters marked return to sender, the unreturned calls, and the cease and desist order from Sophie's personal assistant certainly were.

The first few years, Eleanor channeled her distress into song and dance. When she'd bagged the second double platinum without hard work or fame distracting her from her stupid emotions, she turned to coke and groupies. There were plenty of willing women in the world. Eleanor's stage persona was straight, but everybody knew the truth. The early 2000s were a blur of breasts and thighs and snorting lines.

Then there'd been the scandal, of course. Cell phones had cameras now. She should have known better. "Did you learn nothing from Paris Hilton?" Randy had asked. He actually watched _The Hills_.

Randy had stuck with her through the court-mandated rehab, through the humiliating interviews, through everything. He never managed to keep a boyfriend for longer than three months, but he'd stayed by her side through thick and thin.

"Why aren't we straight?" Eleanor asked one day. It was late June, and they'd just finished the sound check at the Hollywood Bowl. "It would all be so much easier if we were straight."

"Bella," said Randy. "You know it wouldn't. You know if we were straight we wouldn't like each other. Or one of us would like the other and live forever with the unrequited fester of a perpetually needled heart."

"You should be writing songs for Soph with lines like that," Eleanor said.

Randy didn't answer right away. He looked out over all the empty seats, as if scanning for answers. When he did speak his voice was choked and quiet. "You still miss her, don't you?"

"I don't even think about her anymore," Eleanor said. She tossed her blonde hair back in carefully calculated carefree abandon and forced a laugh. Her voice was hard-edged with the strain of lying, though. She knew Randy wouldn't be fooled for a second.

"You should try to talk to her again," he said.

"No way," said Eleanor. "Never. She's made it clear enough that she doesn't care about me, and I don't care about her either."

Randy shook his head sadly. "You do, though. That's the trouble. I don't think there's one person for everybody, but maybe there is for you."

"Let's get out of here," Eleanor said. "We have two hours before call. I want a hamburger."

Randy hadn't dropped it though. He'd kept at her.

"Do you think for one minute that I'd let The One go if I thought I'd found him?" He slurred the words at 2am after they'd polished off a bottle of ridiculously expensive Scotch.

And that was it. That was Eleanor's undoing. The next day she'd told him to go ahead and send the request to Sophie's PA. "Just say no response needed. We'll be in Vegas at the same time. If she wants to meet, we'll wait for her. Find an out of the way rendezvous point."

"Should I include a personal message? Should I say you miss her?"

Eleanor had felt her heart do a little nervous flip at that. " I don't want to know any more of the details. I can't believe I let you talk me into this."

And then it was August, and they'd played Caesar's Palace, and thousands of people had danced along with her, high on the drug that is mindless pop music. And the whole time she'd been wondering about the next evening.

And now it had come.

As the sun began its inevitable descent, Eleanor fingered the sterling silver ring on her left hand. Twenty-two years, and she'd never taken it off for more than a few minutes. But that didn't count for anything. She wasn't coming. She would have been here by now if she'd intended to come.

"She could have business," said Randy, as though he'd read Eleanor's mind.

"At this time of day? On a non-show day? Unlikely."

"She could be sick."

Eleanor snorted. "We're all sick, honey. Every last one of us."

Randy didn't say anything, and he turned his head away so that Eleanor couldn't see his face anymore. She could see his shoulders shaking though.

"Are you crying? Oh God, Randy, don't do that. It's bad enough without that."

Randy sniffled. "I can't help it, Bella. I wanted this so much."

"Why?" Eleanor asked. "Why does it matter if I'm heartbroken because I fucked myself over as a kid?"

"Because," Randy said. He turned and looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. "It would give me some hope for humanity if mistakes could be mended. I can't stand life being nothing but emptiness and sorrow. I can't stand it for you, Bella. Especially not for you. You work so hard. You deserve sunshine and love."

"Well, I've had enough sunshine to last a lifetime in this desert wasteland," Eleanor said. She managed to say it without crying, too. One of them had to be the strong one.

Randy snorted. "Can you turn off the sarcasm for one second?"

"We should go," said Eleanor. She put a hand on Randy's shoulder. "Just take me to the airport. I need to be someplace else right now."

Randy put the car in reverse and backed out of the space so slowly that Eleanor wondered if she'd have to take over.

"Oh, come on," she said. "It's not all bad. "I've still got you. You've still got me. In two weeks, we'll be rocking Australia. Think of the accents."

"Hot hot Aussie sex," Randy said. "Maybe I'll find one of those fine Flight of the Conchords boys."

"They're from New Zealand," said Eleanor.

"Close enough."

And just like that they both actually meant the laughter.

"Will you write a song about this?" Randy asked.

"What about behaving like idiots in a sensible mid-size rental car?"

"About us," said Randy. "About Sophie. About... About Love."

Eleanor was quiet for a solid minute, looking out the window at the barren landscape. She couldn't laugh, and she couldn't dismiss it with sarcasm. "Maybe," she said at last.

"I think you should," said Randy. "Something soft and low."

"Sounds like a b-side," said Eleanor.

"Those are always the best," said Randy. "Hidden gems."

Eleanor blinked hard against the wetness in her eyes and focused on counting tumbleweeds.

"Maybe," she said again. "Maybe I will."


End file.
